A personal word of welcome from my desk and the OER Foundation on joining the virtual participants for our landmark OER university meeting in November 2011. Over the past weekend, already 14 different countries have signed up for our virtual meeting!

This meeting will go down in history as a milestone event towards providing free learning opportunities for all post-secondary students worldwide. We believe that we have achieved the critical mass of colleges and universities to implement the vision, and I thank you for your interest and support in helping us plan the future of the OER university.

I invite you to collaborate in building more sustainable education futures:

Please share the gift of knowledge with colleagues and friends and invite them to join this global initiative. I attach a poster which you are free to distribute electronically, cite in blog posts or print out and post on notice boards at your institution. You can direct people to this page for more information.

Appreciate your help in getting the OERui word out. I see you have signed up as a virtual participant — the OERu partners will benefit tremendously from your experience of open in the uni sector. Thanks 🙂

The University of Otago (your next door neighbour) should be engaging with this and other innovative initiatives. Even getting permission to attach a Creative Commons licence to a teaching resource is not a simple matter here. Otago is very much focussed on the campus experience, and many see no reason to investigate alternative models or practices beyond our bluestone walls. Of course, with all the attention placed on research, ideas for improving and extending our teaching is not high up on the list of priorities. However, there are many people scattered around the place here at Otago (as elsewhere) who know we can do much better, and who want to learn from the individuals and institutions that are initiating change.